


Constellations

by Josselin



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Arranged Marriage, Auguste (Captive Prince) Lives, F/M, M/M, Sexual Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-27 02:51:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16694038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Josselin/pseuds/Josselin
Summary: They were married on the battlefield.After each of the Crown Princes of Akielos and Vere had fallen once, and each had allowed the other to arise, Auguste of Vere hesitated before resuming his attack, and said, “There is another way.” He spoke Akielon, so he clearly wanted to be understood by his enemy; his accent was heavy.





	Constellations

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [Punk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Punk/profile) for betaing my fic and being patient with my endless fascination with reintroducing Nikandros as Damen's friend and Kastor as Damen's brother.
> 
> And a wonderful kudos to my artist, @hauntedorangemobile, for illustrating my favorite scene as well as some section breaks in the work. :D

They were married on the battlefield. 

Marlas would have been a beautiful country, if they hadn’t been in the middle of a field littered with bodies. The battle had been waged for several hours before the Princes had decided to settle it with single combat. The grass in the field was green with spring, but there was all of the detritus of battle. Fallen men. Fallen horses. Pieces of armor. Dropped weapons. Arrows planted in the ground with their colored fletching pointed up at the sky. 

After each of the Crown Princes of Akielos and Vere had fallen once, and each had allowed the other to arise, Auguste of Vere hesitated before resuming his attack, and said, “There is another way.” He spoke Akielon, so he clearly wanted to be understood by his enemy; his accent was heavy.

Damen squinted into the sun at Auguste’s shadow. “What is the other way?” Damen spoke Veretian as his own offering, since his command of the other language was much better.

Auguste switched languages to speak in his own tongue. “My brother had a plan.”

Damen’s brother was older than he was, ten years older, and had already been a boy training with the men when Damen had been born. Kastor was the son of Theomedes and his mistress Hypermenestra, while Damen was the son of Theomedes and his wife Egeria, their only true born child, as his mother had died birthing him.

The Veretians had such a stigma about bastardy that their royals did not keep mistresses in that fashion, and Auguste had no half-siblings that Damen had ever heard about. Auguste’s only brother was also true born, and younger than Auguste. If Damen remembered correctly, Auguste’s younger brother Laurent was a fair bit younger than he was, closer to Damen’s age than to Auguste’s. Damen thought he was perhaps eighteen.

In Akielos, eighteen was old enough to be on the field of battle, but Damen had not seen Auguste’s brother near the front in the fighting. Auguste had been there, with his standard, leading the charge for the Veretians and then accepting the offer of settling the battle based on the outcome of their duel. But Damen had not seen the banner of the second prince of Vere.

“And that is?” Damen said.

“A treaty,” said Auguste. He took two steps to his right, which meant that Damen could look at him without staring directly into the sun. It was an enormous gesture, to give up that kind of strategic advantage. Damen could see the features of his face, now that he was not entirely in shadow, and Auguste appeared grave and sincere. His hair was streaked with sweat. His face had a smear of dirt on one side and a smear of blood on the other. 

“What are the terms of your brother’s treaty?” said Damen. 

“Peace,” said Auguste. He kept both hands on the hilt of his sword, but nodded his head out at the field around them. “I don’t want this.”

“Delpha is rightfully an Akielon territory,” said Damen. “It was so in the time of my grandmother Eradne.”

Auguste swallowed visibly, then nodded. A concession.

They agreed first to negotiate further, but not on the field and each with a minister or a companion. 

Damen brought his training companion and childhood friend Nikandros, who had just finished serving at the Kingsmeet, which was the highest honor that an Akielon soldier could have. “We ought to be doing this at the Kingsmeet,” said Nikandros. He was correct. The Kingsmeet was a sacred place intended for just this type of negotiation. No Akielon would draw a weapon in the Kingsmeet, so it was a place where rival kings--or in this case, princes--could discuss without fear of violence. 

They were not near to the Kingsmeet, though, and Damen was not going to allow the Veretians to bring their army into the heart of Akielos in the way that would be necessary to travel to the Kingsmeet, and so they met in a rapidly erected and very tensely guarded tent in the middle of the same field where they had been fighting.

Auguste’s companion was smaller than he was, and wearing the same type of fine mail armor, and then his companion removed his helm and the resemblance between the two of them was apparent. Auguste and his companion had the same features, the same coloring, and the same blue eyes. His companion was smaller than he was, shorter and more slender, but if he were the age that Damen remembered then it was possible he was not yet finished growing. 

Auguste introduced his brother, “Prince Laurent,” and Damen presented Nikandros. Laurent set his helm down on the table that had been assembled within the tent, and then next to his helm, set a stack of parchments. It was a draft of the treaty.

Auguste deferred to Laurent regarding the treaty. “He has a mind for details,” Auguste offered, by way of explanation. Laurent’s Akielon was no better than Auguste’s was, so they conducted their discussion in Veretian. 

Laurent explained the terms of the treaty. The ceding of Delfeur--Damen and Nikandros stubbornly said Delpha, Laurent and Auguste used the Veretian Delfeur, and neither of them were willing to change. The division of other territory. Provisions for limitations on the quantity of troops to be stationed along the border. Arrangements for future meetings to review the border and resolve any disputes in a harmonized way. The treaty had clearly been constructed by an extremely rational and detail-oriented mind. This was not something that had been scrawled in the minutes since their fight. Damen was more familiar with the field of war than he was with the intricacies of diplomacy, but even he could recognize that this was a project that Laurent--or whoever he was serving as a mouthpiece for--had put hours of thought and work into.

Damen listened closely to the explanation of the terms. Nikandros did as well. 

When Laurent was finished, he looked to his brother, and Auguste looked to Damen and Nikandros for their reaction. 

“How do we know that you will honor the treaty?” said Nikandros.

“How do we know that you will honor it?” said Auguste.

Laurent spoke up. “I have made a specific provision intended to address the improvement of relations between the countries and to provide a path to increased mutual trust.”

“And so?” said Damen. 

That was when Laurent explained his proposal.

He had evidently not explained that portion of the treaty to his brother prior, because while Auguste had listened to him describe how Delfeur would go to the Akielons without a change of expression or an objection, now Auguste looked dismayed. “Laurent,” he said. “No, it is too much.”

Laurent did not look sideways to his brother and kept his eyes focused on Damen, waiting for Damen’s reaction.

Damen looked Laurent over again, considering him not just as a foreign prince, as Auguste’s chosen companion, as the mastermind of a piece of diplomacy, but considering him as a man. Damen took in his features, his complexion, the fineness of his skin. Damen assessed his figure and his build, his shape. His eyes met Laurent’s, went downward, then traveled up to meet Laurent’s eyes again. 

Damen thought about marrying this young man, and about facing the calm and serious expression every morning over the breakfast table in Ios. He thought about Laurent seated on the throne next to him in the great hall. He thought about presenting Laurent to his people in a festival at the Kingsmeet. He thought about introducing Laurent to his father. 

His thoughts took a more personal turn. He thought of Laurent in his bedchamber, undressing. Of Laurent underneath him in his bed. Of how Laurent’s yellow hair and pale skin might look against his sheets. 

He was still gazing into Laurent’s eyes. Damen had the unmistakable feeling that Laurent could tell what he was thinking. That Laurent could see in his eyes somehow that Damen was picturing Laurent underneath him in bed. Damen felt himself flush, slightly, and hoped that it was not visible. His skin was dark and even darker from the sun, and the light in the tent was dim. His reaction was probably not visible.

“I agree,” said Damen to Laurent.

The same servants who had been summoned to set up the tent in the middle of the battlefield were put to work again to dismantle the shelter and take it away, and an officiant was produced. The officiant was Patran, which had the advantage of being neither Veretian nor Akielon in bias, and the ceremony was conducted in Patran for the same reason of wanting to favor neither side unduly. 

The officiant cued him in Patran, but Damen spoke his vows in Akielon so that his assembled generals and men could understand him and hear the oaths he was making. Laurent followed the same pattern and spoke his vows in Veretian. His voice was clear and didn’t waver.

Patran weddings concluded with the tying of a ribbon around the wrists of the newly-wed couple, so after it was complete, Damen stood next to Laurent on the battlefield with a blue ribbon around his wrist. 

Heralds proclaimed the details of the treaty to the assembled armies. The officiant signalled for the two of them to raise their joined hands, and they did. A few of the men gave a tentative shout of approval. 

Damen lowered his hand, after the shouts of the men had faded, and Laurent followed. 

Damen glanced down and eyed the ribbon. It was tied haphazardly by the officiant and seemed like it might fall off at any moment. “Do we take the ribbon off?” said Damen.

“I know nothing of Patran weddings,” said Laurent. 

Damen supposed that was reasonable enough. “How do Veretian weddings end?” he said.

Laurent looked his way, his look was heavy with disbelief. “I don’t think you want to know.”

That question did make Damen curious, but they were interrupted by one of the members of the Veretian council, and then Auguste hugged Laurent tightly and hugged Damen very hesitantly and at some point in the ensuing commotion the ribbon came untied and fell to the ground and was lost in the mud with the other detritus of the battlefield. 

There were dozens of Veretians vying for Laurent’s attention about provisions of the treaty or arrangements for his travel to Akielos with the Akielon royal party. Damen saw more of Auguste that evening before his own attention was pulled to his people. Damen’s father wanted to speak with him, they had to appoint Nikandros as the Kyros of the new Akielon province of Delpha, and Damen had to make arrangements to bring his groom back with him as they returned to the capital city of Ios. 

When it came time to retire for sleep, Damen did not know where Laurent had gone. He assumed Laurent had returned to the Veretian camp and his own lodgings there, since he was not present among the Akielons, and Damen spent the night of his wedding alone in his tent. 

He dreamed of the battlefield, a terrible tense dream where he fought continuously but his opponents were unceasing, and when he finally fell in the dream he awoke, and lay on his pallet in his tent, breathing heavily and grateful. He was glad to be awake, glad to be alone, and glad that the war was over.

They began the journey back to Ios the following day. Nikandros stayed in Delpha, as the newly appointed governor, and a number of the generals and the permitted amount of men were staying with him, to secure the new border territories and be on guard against the ongoing raids from Vask.

Nikandros attempted to kneel, to say farewell to Damen in the traditional way, but Damen raised him to his feet and embraced him as a friend, holding him tightly and clapping him on the back. 

“Good luck, old friend,” he said. 

Nikandros cast his eyes toward the Veretian contingent that was going along to Akielos, the Prince and his belongings and servants and the Prince’s Guard. “You also,” said Nikandros.

Damen hugged him again.

Damen did not see much of Laurent on their journey to Ios. Damen had been uncertain about whether a pampered Veretian princeling would be able to keep up with the progress of the Akielon army on the march. He was generally of the mindset that a bit of hardening was good for a young man, but he also felt that it would serve him well to be considerate of his new spouse and to treat him with kindness. So Damen watched him closely, but Laurent showed no signs of flagging. The Veretians were the first to be ready to head out in the morning and in the evening their portion of the camp was the most orderly. Laurent rode at the head of the Veretian contingent until they reached the sea, and then Laurent kept below decks on the ship, even though the weather was nice and the sea spray was refreshing on the skin. 

The journey was quiet and contemplative. Damen’s father was never especially talkative, but kept particularly to himself during the voyage. Kastor spent his time drinking and playing dice with his friends. Damen felt Nikandros’s absence acutely, more acutely than when Nikandros had been away serving at the Kingsmeet. When Nikandros had first left to serve, Damen had hoped to join him the following year, when he became the appropriate age. By the time he understood that his father would never permit that, a year of Nikandros’s service had already passed and Damen had known that it was temporary, that Nikandros would return. 

Serving as Kyros of Delpha was different. That was a task that would last a lifetime. Damen would see Nikandros again, when he toured the provinces, or when the Kyroi came to Ios to pay their respects at solemn occasions. But it would never be the same between the two of them as it had been when they were boys, and Damen mourned the loss of his closest friend. 

After three days on the ship, Damen was ignoring his father’s frown and taking a turn with the rowing simply out of boredom. His father thought it was unseemly for a prince to do that kind of manual labor, but Damen found it confining to sit on the ship with no way to occupy himself, and the rhythm of the oars kept his muscles active and allowed his mind to wander. 

He observed out of the corner of his eye that Laurent had come up to the oar deck and was watching him. Damen’s attention was distracted for a moment, looking back at Laurent, and the oar hit him in the chest. He returned his attention to his labor, counting in sequence with the other men, but he could feel Laurent’s eyes. 

Laurent watched him for perhaps a quarter of an hour, his gaze heavy, and then he retreated again.

They had sent a messenger ahead to Ios, so when they arrived, Hypermenestra had arranged for a welcome feast. The feast was to celebrate the warriors who had fallen, and the new peace, and Laurent’s arrival.

Laurent was seated next to Damen at the feast, naturally, and Damen could observe his behavior. Laurent was dressed neatly in a Veretian fashion with a high-necked jacket and undershirt and was likely warm, even when the heat of the day had cooled in the evening. He sat with straight posture, attentively watching the proceedings and the others at the high table. 

Laurent declined offers from the slaves to fill his goblet with wine, and instead requested water. He watched the slaves serving with the same curiosity he turned to Damen’s family. He had an air of listening about him, and Damen wondered how much Akielon he understood.

Damen tried to make conversation. He ventured in Veretian. 

“How long have you studied Akielon?” he asked, thinking of Laurent’s comfort in the country and the time it might take him to become fluent.

Laurent seemed to take it as an insult. “I am no warmonger,” he said. “I had no reason to conquer Akielos. Why trouble myself with a barbarian language?”

Damen’s eyes narrowed. “Poetry?” he suggested. “Writings on logic? Timon’s commentary on Bahrein’s theories?”

“As though you studied Veretian for the poetry,” said Laurent.

Veretian poetry, in Damen’s experience, favored long poems that rhymed and were full of ribald jokes and good people meeting gruesome ends.

“In Akielos,” he said, “A good poem is expected to tell a story of a hero, someone who can be admired and emulated. What makes for a good poem in Vere?”

“Skill with words,” said Laurent.

Laurent offered nothing further. Platters of food were brought out. 

Hypermenestra did not speak Veretian, but made a polite attempt at conversation from Laurent’s other side in careful Akielon. 

She explained to him the different dishes that were being served: spiced meats, roasted root vegetables. She directed the slaves to give Laurent small portions of each one, telling him that he could try each one and determine which he liked best to eat more.

Laurent bore this patiently, refused to let the slaves feed him, and instead took dainty bites from his own fingers as Hypermenestra directed.

Damen made conversational overtures again later in the meal, and found about the same success as he had had with the questions about Laurent’s study of languages. 

After the welcome feast, Damen offered to walk Laurent to his chambers. Laurent had not seen them before. They had been prepared in their absence as had the feast Hypermenestra had hosted.

There were moments of awkwardness at Laurent’s doorway. Damen hadn’t been thinking of an invitation--Laurent had made his hesitance clear during the journey and with his comments during the feast. Damen expected that things might be more natural between them as they got to know each other. It was to be expected with a political marriage. 

But Laurent seemed oddly uncomfortable as they approached his rooms, as though he anticipated some kind of invitation and were readying himself for rejecting it. 

Damen tried to make it clear he had no such plan, gesturing toward Laurent’s door and taking a step backward. “Good night,” he said. “I hope everything is to your liking. Sleep well.”

Laurent waited a moment, looking at him. He seemed very young, all of a sudden. Without saying anything further, he grasped the handle on the door and disappeared within.

Damen and Theomedes and Kastor were quickly drawn into business upon their return to Ios. There were questions about the army--which units were going to be decommissioned with the new treaty? Where would the men be settled? Which commanders were going to be rewarded? Nikandros sent messages every few days about how things were progressing in Delpha, and Damen sat with his father as he dictated his replies to a scribe. 

There was also much of the typical business of Ios to be addressed. The Kyros of Ios, Meniados, handled much of it, and had managed the city during their absence. But there were enough people with one reason or another to claim justice directly from the King that Theomedes spent extra time on the throne when he had returned.

Damen saw his new husband infrequently. Laurent attended the evening meal with Damen and his family, whether they ate in the hall with all of the generals, or whether they ate privately in the family dining room with just their slaves to serve them. Damen tried to make polite conversation with Laurent each day, and to find opportunities for them to establish common interests and get to know each other better, but it was difficult, and it did not seem that Laurent was making a similar effort.

At the first family meal, Damen asked Laurent about what types of sports he enjoyed, and Laurent wrinkled his nose and said, “Sports?” with a tone that expressed he wouldn't deign to participate in anything so vulgar.

The next day, having exhausted one of his own interests as a topic of conversation, Damen asked if Laurent would like to see the library. Laurent had already visited, he said, if the paltry collection of books could even be considered a library. Damen tried to keep an even temper. 

“Are there particular volumes you suggest?” he said. “Perhaps I could arrange for some additions.”

“Do you mean to march on and pillage Octbana?” said Laurent, which was a city in Patras with a very famous library.

Damen thinned his lips. “I imagined perhaps commissioning copies of some new works,” he said mildly, to which Laurent made no reply.

After Laurent had been in Ios perhaps a week, he offered a topic of conversation. It might have been a sign of his willingness to make their relationship work, except for how he raised it. His topic was Damen’s harem. He at least waited for a meal when he and Damen were eating alone, rather than with the rest of Damen’s family. Damen was being fed by Lykaios, one of his favorites. Laurent had been offered service by any of Damen’s slaves--he could have had his pick--as well as by several beauties recently from Nereus’s garden that Adrastus had selected to honor him. Laurent had declined all of this, and at meals he ate his food with his own fingers. It was curiously foreign, and Laurent had a delicacy about how he did it which was intriguing to watch. 

This evening, Lykaios had finished serving Damen bites of spiced meat, and he murmured his appreciation and pleasure at both the food and her service. Laurent nodded at Lykaios, who was still seated at Damen’s feet, and said, in Veretian, “Slaves offend me.”

Damen turned his direction. “Is that why you refuse service?”

Laurent nodded. “I don’t want to live in a household that keeps people who have no control over their own destiny.”

Damen’s forehead creased. “Serving at the palace is an honor,” he said. “There is no higher place.”

“There is a higher place,” said Laurent, “or they would be the King and you would be serving them.”

“I meant for a slave,” said Damen.

“I see you do not understand me,” said Laurent.

“I do not,” said Damen. “Please explain.”

“It is not a subject for discussion,” said Laurent.

“I do not intend to be celibate,” said Damen.

“How can you take pleasure with someone who has no choice but to serve you?” said Laurent, and then, even though the meal was not completed, Laurent rose and left the table. 

Lykaios did not speak Veretian, but she seemed to have some sense that Damen and Laurent’s conversation had been about her, and pressed her lips to Damen’s calf with a whispered apology. He rested his hand on her head gently, reassuring. 

Damen took Lykaios to bed with him that night. She undressed him, and offered to massage him with oil. He accepted, rolling onto his stomach so she could work on the musculature of his back, which often became tight when he was stuck in the capital and not in the field. She was well trained, and the touch of her hands was pleasing. 

After she had finished with his back, he turned over, and gestured, and said, “Please.”

Lykaios nodded, and smiled, and said, “Of course, Exalted,” and bent to take his cock into her mouth. 

Damen’s balcony in the palace was open to the cliffs and the sea, and a summer storm was coming in that evening. He had observed it over the water in the afternoon, and the fishermen had been bringing in their boats to the harbor. Over the evening meal the air had been oppressive, heavy in the way it often was before a crack of thunder and a first burst of rain. 

The storm was breaking as Lykaios pleasured Damen. The sky had darkened. There was a roar of thunder in the distance, and then a crack of thunder that was much closer. The air changed. A cooler breeze came in through the window. Then the rain began to fall. Damen could hear first one drop, then a second, and then so many he could no longer distinguish any of them, and it was just the patter of many drops against the stone. 

Damen found his thoughts drifting. He thought of Laurent’s words at the evening meal, of the straight way Laurent had stood when he had left the room without looking back. He exchanged Lykaios’s honey curls for Laurent’s fair locks and imagined that Laurent was the one in his bed this evening, and felt unaccountably excited. Damen rarely spent much time pursuing lovers who were clearly uninterested. He had occasionally admired women who had made it clear they were uninterested in men, or men who had told him they exclusively preferred the charms of women. He had eyed visitors to Ios who he learned were monogamous with their partners, or promised to another, or simply uninterested in what he was able to offer them. He did not lose sleep in these cases, but simply focused on another. The joy was to be had when the pleasure was mutual. 

It was unusual, therefore, for his thoughts to turn to Laurent when Laurent had been so cold to him. It was impossible to imagine Laurent in Lykaios’s position. Laurent was the epitome of cool correctness. When Damen thought of him, he thought of Laurent composed, with his hair carefully combed and his clothes carefully laced. Imagining Laurent in bed, with his hair mussed and his clothes unlaced seemed shockingly unseemly, even though in Damen’s mental image Laurent was still wearing more clothing than Lykaios had worn all season.

Damen pushed the thought of his husband from his mind and focused on his lover. The storm was closer now. The water was falling in sheets outside the window, and when the wind blew strongly the breeze coming in to the bed was moist. There was a flash of lightning and the room was lit as though it were the middle of the day, and then the flash was gone, and it was dark again. 

Laurent came into his mind again. He imagined Laurent in the bed next to him, his hair falling soft on Damen’s pillow. He thought of the smooth curve of Laurent’s cheek. He pictured caressing Laurent’s neck, down along the curve of his shoulder. His skin there would be so pale, untouched by the sun. Untouched by anyone except his lovers.

Laurent’s lovers--Damen suspected that there had not been many. The Prince was not very old, and he seemed selective in his tastes. He was hesitant to consummate his marriage with Damen, so he was not aggressive with such things, to have leapt into bed with half of the Veretian court. Or perhaps he disliked Damen in particular. Or he had left behind a particular lover in Vere, and he was mourning the loss. 

Damen’s thoughts turned more lascivious. He imagined kissing Laurent, tasting him. Pleasing him with gentle touches and the brush of their lips together. They could wait out a storm such as this that way, the warmth of each other’s bodies bracing them as the cooler air blew in. Damen thought of Laurent beneath him in the bed, of joining his body to Laurent’s and seeing Laurent draw his pleasure from it. He pictured Laurent arching beneath him, abandoned. 

The storm subsided. The rain slowed, until Damen could once again make out the sound of individual drops against the stone, and the drops became further apart. It stayed dim, not because of the storm, but because night had fallen during the rain. 

The next morning, Damen made arrangements for his household slaves to be sent to Aegina. There was an old training garden there, where the weather was fair and the orchards were bountiful. There was space for them to stay for an extended period. 

His decision caused a great deal of fuss. It was commonly understood, in Akielos, that what a noble did with his or her slaves was no business but their own. Well-trained slaves were above gossip, and so while poorly trained slaves might spread rumors or a neighbor might speculate on another person’s preferences, that was not something that happened in the palace. But everyone seemed determined to comment on Damen’s decision. Adrastus was ready to supply Damen with a new harem that would not displease him in the same fashion, and Damen had to spend close to an hour explaining to Adrastus that he was not displeased, simply trying something different, and that he did not wish any replacements. 

Kastor made a crude comment that Laurent’s talents in bed were such that he had made Damen decide to forsake all others. “I did not know you were so interested in the tiger’s jaws, brother.”

Theomedes seemed to suspect a similar motivation, but was more tactful, simply cautioning Damen that the first blush of marriage infatuation could be charming, but that Damen should refrain from any further reckless decisions. 

The person who Damen was hoping would react did nothing. Laurent sat next to Damen at that evening’s meal and did not remark upon the absence of any of Damen’s personal slaves in the service. Damen didn’t care to eat with his fingers, so he signalled one of the servants to bring him some utensils and ate with a fork. 

Laurent watched that with interest. “You have forks.” His tone was dry.

Damen used the fork to raise a bite of meat to his lips. He chewed it pointedly and then swallowed. “Of course,” he said. “Did you want one?”

He hadn’t learned all that much about Laurent in the days they had been married so far, but he had learned that Laurent was stubborn. So when Laurent said, “No,” and proceeded to eat his meat with his fingers, Damen suppressed a smile.

They had been in Ios for close to a month when Hypermenestra suggested some time away. It was hot in the capital, she said. Damen and Laurent were newly married. It was traditional to take some time to relax and enjoy each other. They should travel. Spend some time alone. “Oh, the summer palace!” 

Theomedes grunted at his mistress’s suggestion. “Your mother loved the summer palace,” he told Damen. 

“Is there a palace for every season?” said Laurent, with his peculiarly accented Akielon.

“You should go tomorrow,” Theomedes said. 

Their things traveled in a wagon with the servants, but they rode ahead. The day was clear and it was early enough that the air was not too hot yet. The sun was bright. Birds were singing. The ride was several hours and it passed in silence between them, but the silence was companionable. Laurent was a good rider. His form was good. His horse was a beautiful bay mare--a Kemptiam charger, Damen thought--and clearly well kept. 

When they arrived, they dismounted in the middle of the quadrangle. Laurent’s horse eyed some of the red flowers bordering the entrance to the gardens. 

“Have you been here before?” said Laurent.

“Once,” said Damen. He had come two years before, when Nikandros had been serving at the Kingsmeet and before the planning for war had begun. He hadn’t brought a companion along with him, then. He had come to be by himself, and to think. He had hunted with some members of his guard, and he had gone down by the water and swam, and in the evenings he had curled up with one of his slaves. 

Damen pushed those thoughts away, now, and said, “Let me show you around,” and they turned their horses over to a servant and walked around. 

They walked past a myrtle shrub into the gardens and followed a meandering path through the colonnades and past the fountains. Laurent walked diagonally through the middle of one of the cloisters. Damen followed a few steps behind him. This cloister was planted with orange trees in each quadrant, and the blossoms were fragrant. The center of the cloister was a small marble fountain. The fountain had two levels. Water burbled slowly out of a pipe at the top, dribbling into the first level, and then spilling over the top of the first level to the deeper second level. Laurent trailed his fingers along the water in the second level.

A fish swam to the surface at the touch of his fingers, and Laurent drew his hand away, obviously surprised. It looked youthful and was a more genuine gesture than most of Laurent’s actions. Damen smiled. 

They followed the colonnade through an archway to a second cloister, this one planted with almond trees. Damen showed Laurent the alcove by the sea that held his mother’s statue, and Laurent said something polite about her beauty. 

“I never knew her,” said Damen. “She died birthing me.”

“My mother died the year fever came to Arles,” said Laurent. 

That had been two years prior, the spread of fever that year had been so notable there had been news of it even in Ios. In Akielos, they had worried it would spread further south, and the harbormaster had turned Veretian ships away at the entrance to the harbor so that no one infected with the disease would be able to enter the city.

“I am sorry,” said Damen. “Were you taken ill?”

Laurent looked away from Egeria and toward Damen. He nodded, looking youthful again. “She tended me when I took ill,” he said. “She continued caring for me even as she became sick herself.”

They continued walking. They admired the view of the sea for a while, and then they followed the tunnel of tree branches back down toward the baths of Lentos. The baths in Lentos weren’t like the baths in Ios. There were a variety of pools, as there were in Ios, some warm and some cooler. But here the baths were open air. There was a careful arrangement of rectangular pools, some under shaded colonnades to keep the water cooler, others open to be warmed by the sun. 

Servants had prepared the baths for their arrival. There was an arrangement of soaps and oils sitting next to a stack of fluffy white towels. 

Bathing seemed appealing. The dirt of the ride was still on them, and it was the hottest part of the day. Reclining in one of the cooler pools in the shade sounded pleasant. 

Damen gestured to the bathing supplies left out by one of the servants. “It is hot,” he said to Laurent. “Would you like to?”

Laurent hesitated for a moment, and then nodded.

It was common in Akielos for friends or family to bathe together. In the city, friends might go to the city baths in groups, or meet friends there to lounge. A wealthier merchant or lord might have a private bath in his residence for the use of his family. In the palace, there were several baths. The royal bath was reserved for the royal family and their specifically invited guests. There was a guest bath for visiting nobility who did not merit an invitation to join the royalty. And the slave baths was available to the slaves and servants who worked in the palace.

Laurent would have been entitled to use the royal baths based solely on his own status, regardless of his marriage to Damen. Damen had never seen him there. Laurent had not joined Damen when he relaxed with Kastor or his father, or when he bathed alone quickly after exercising. Damen assumed that Laurent did bathe, because his appearance was well tended, but he either made a point to visit the baths when there were no other occupants, or he washed privately in his chambers.

Damen was quicker to remove his own clothing than Laurent was. Damen unbuckled the leather breastplate he had worn for their ride to the palace, and set it aside, and then he untied the strings on the leather skirt he was wearing and let it fall to the ground. Underneath those he had been wearing a plain fabric tunic. It was damp with sweat from the heat of the day. He pulled it off over his head and draped the fabric over a shrub with the hope that the sun and the breeze would dry it. 

Damen levered himself over the edge of one of the pools and sat on the bench. He sighed. The water was pleasant. Then, he looked at Laurent.

Laurent’s clothing was more complicated than Damen’s. Laurent began by unlacing the leather riding jacket he was wearing. It laced up the front of the chest, as well as along his forearms, narrowing to his wrists. Laurent had loosened the arm laces and undone the laces up the front, and then he shrugged the jacket off, caught it with one hand, and set it on one of the benches. 

Laurent was wearing a linen shirt underneath his jacket, and Damen could see that like his own tunic, the shirt was damp with sweat. Laurent didn’t remove it yet, turning his attention to his boots, which were also laced up to his knees, and carefully loosening the leather strings on those so that he could pull them off. 

“You might find Akielon clothing more comfortable in the heat,” said Damen.

Laurent’s glare was cold, even though his cheeks were flushed and his hairline was sweaty. “Or I could just wander around naked.” His voice made it clear that was a very unlikely outcome.

Damen replied mildly, “It is not uncommon to do so, when the heat is very intense.”

Laurent set his boots next to one of the benches where he had shed his jacket, and began on the laces of his trousers. Damen watched. Laurent turned to sit on the bench when he removed the pants, pushing them down his hips and then tugging them off his legs. His legs emerged. His skin was very pale, but his calves and thighs were muscled. Likely from riding, Damen guessed. Laurent’s linen shirt fell to mid-thigh, obscuring Damen’s view.

Laurent made no move to remove his shirt, and instead stepped into the pool. He stood on the bench that Damen was sitting on. The water was almost to his knees. His steps into the pool created waves in the water that extended in larger circles until tiny ripples hit Damen’s chest.

“Do you bathe, in Vere?” said Damen.

Laurent gave him another cool look. “We aren’t barbarians.”

“What are the baths like, in Arles?” said Damen.

Laurent did not seem interested in conversation. He shifted his weight from one foot to another, which resulted in more small ripples in the water. Then, he moved his arms, and tugged his linen shirt off over his head. He leaned, and dropped the shirt off on the same bench he had left his jacket on.

Laurent was naked, now. Damen looked on his revealed body with interest. In his clothing, Laurent did not have a particularly notable physique. He wouldn’t be noted as an athlete; his most obvious feature was his mind and his sharp tongue. With his clothing on a bench, Laurent’s form was obvious. Laurent was very attractive. He would have stood out among the beauties of Nereus’s garden as exceptionally beautiful. His shoulders were strong, his arms were lean and well formed. His torso was muscular and lithe. He was an age where he might still gain an inch or two in height, but he was already of average height. Damen observed his cock, which was quiescent, and then Laurent lowered himself into water and sat on the bench and obscured himself from view. 

Once Laurent was submerged, it was almost impossible to believe that he was naked. Even though Damen had just seen him, he found it challenging to believe. Laurent’s body was a pale shimmering blur beneath the water, now. He tipped his head back, dunking his hair underneath the water and letting it drip down his back. Then he relaxed on a bench across from Damen in the same pool. 

“It’s been so hot,” said Laurent.

Damen made a noise of agreement. 

There was a time without talking, with only the sounds of the garden. Damen could hear the water in the pool they were using lap against the side of the marble edges. There was the heavy drone of insects, and a bird in some other portion of the orchard, and the sound of the sea beyond. 

Laurent broke the silence. “The gardens here are very beautiful.” It was offered tentatively, as though Laurent was uncertain of the reception of the compliment.

“Thank you,” said Damen. “My mother designed them.”

Laurent asked about the kind of fruit that was growing in the corner of the garden with the baths, and Damen described what the apricots looked like when they were ripe. “You have never had one?”

“A fruit with fuzz?” said Laurent, looking mystified. “No.” Laurent wore a half smile and there was a wrinkle on his forehead as he thought about fruit with fuzz. Damen wanted to kiss him.

Damen moved, instead, pushing away from the marble wall he’d been reclined against and swimming a couple of feet to the other side of the pool. He sat on the bench next to Laurent. He left a few inches of space between them. The water lapped more urgently against the edge of the pool with Damen’s movement, and then as he held still, it subsided.

Laurent was a statue next to him. He had frozen his position when Damen had first moved, and had not relaxed. He was still looking at where Damen had previously been sitting across the pool, rather than angling to where Damen was now beside him.

The playful mood of talking about apricots had faded. Damen had been thinking of saying something about the feel of the fruit against the skin, but he kept his mouth closed. He sat on the bench next to Laurent and waited for the water to settle, and then longer, after the water had long been still, for Laurent to relax again.

Damen nodded toward the apricot tree again. “They flower in the spring,” he said. “White flowers with pink stems attaching them to the branch. If you go to an orchard, you will sneeze because the air is full of pollen and there are bees everywhere. Then after a few days, a strong wind blows, and suddenly all of the petals are like rain falling from the trees and landing on the ground. When I was a boy I thought apricot petals were what snow was, when I read about snow in books.”

Laurent had relaxed enough to tilt his head Damen’s direction. “Actual snow must have been a disappointment to you.”

“It is so cold,” said Damen. “It might be nice to have some now.” He splashed a bit of water on his face for a cooling effect.

Damen gestured again to the tree. “The fruit will grow over the summer. A ripe fruit is perhaps--” he gestured with his hands, showing the size of a small apricot in comparison with a larger one. “They are very good if eaten ripe, just before they might fall off the tree, but of course it is impractical to eat very many that way, and the villagers go into the orchard and set out all of the apricots along the road to dry in the sun, and then the dried fruit can be eaten all winter.”

Laurent nodded. “It is yellow?” he said. “I think it was served at breakfast, the other day?”

Damen thought back, and there had been a meal with dried apricot, and he nodded. 

Laurent looked at the tree with new interest. 

Damen looked at Laurent. He was closer to Laurent now. He had a lover’s view of Laurent’s skin. He could see the fine hair on Laurent’s face--like the fuzz on a fruit they had talked about--and the golden stubble along Laurent’s jaw. Laurent’s jaw led to the pale column of his neck and the curve of his shoulder where his body turned into a mystery of an underwater statue. 

Damen again wanted to kiss him. He imagined how Laurent would taste--the taste in his mind was blended with the scent of apricots--and he imagined touching Laurent and bringing him to pleasure. He wanted to daze Laurent with enjoyment, to hear him cry out in abandon. His thoughts and his proximity to Laurent were causing a stirring of interest in his body.

“Laurent,” said Damen. He let the deep timbre of his voice carry his intent and interest. Laurent looked over from the tree and regarded Damen sharply. Laurent said nothing.

Damen moved his hand from the back of the marble bench and reached for Laurent. He hesitated for a long moment with his hand a few inches from Laurent’s face, waiting for any kind of objection. None was forthcoming. Laurent watched Damen with the manner of a snake in the grass.

After having allowed for Laurent to object and receiving no comments, Damen moved his hand closer and then brushed it against Laurent’s cheek. Laurent looked at him. His eyes were very blue and his pupils were small in the sunlight. Damen moved his hand lower and caressed Laurent’s neck. He could feel Laurent’s pulse fluttering against his fingers like a man might feel a small bird cupped in his hands. 

Laurent parted his lips slightly.

“Husband,” Damen tried an endearment. He allowed his hand to trail lower, following the line of Laurent’s shoulder beneath the water. 

With a splash of water, Laurent was gone. Damen shook his head, trying to clear his vision from the spray of water that had splashed him when Laurent moved. Laurent had raised himself out of the pool and by the time Damen could see again, Laurent had wrapped himself in one of the white cotton towels left out by the servants. 

Damen took a breath. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

Laurent stared at him for a moment, then gathered up his clothing with one hand while he held his towel tightly clenched his other hand, and he disappeared off toward the palace. 

Damen stayed in the bath a while longer, and then--more slowly than Laurent had--he also exited the pool and used one of the remaining towels to dry himself off. 

He saw Laurent again at the evening meal, which the servants presented to the two of them at a table in one of the gardens. The first part of the meal was vegetables and soft cheese drizzled in oil and flavored with spices. Damen could tell that Laurent did not care for the tomatoes, because he ate around them on his plate. 

“I am sorry,” said Damen. 

Laurent had a bite of cheese half-raised to his mouth, he hesitated, then popped it into his mouth and chewed.

It was hard for Damen to read Laurent’s expressions, so he had characteristic trouble deciphering Laurent’s reaction to that pronouncement. Damen had hoped for some sort of explanation, or guidance. Perhaps Laurent’s affections were occupied by another man he had left behind in Arles. Perhaps Laurent was one of those men reserved his attention exclusively for women. Perhaps Laurent wished to be courted in some Veretian fashion with which Damen was unfamiliar. If Laurent spoke, Damen hoped to understand. 

“I don’t understand you,” Laurent said. 

The feeling was mutual. “I find you attractive,” said Damen. “I know we are a political match, but an intimate marriage appeals to me.”

Laurent ate an olive and delicately spat the pit into a small dish. 

“And if I do not wish an intimate marriage?”

A servant offered to refill their goblets with wine, Damen waved to decline. “I will not presume upon you again unless you indicate your interests have changed.”

Laurent seemed to see no need to speak of it further, and didn’t. Servants came with the meat course, and their attention returned to the food. 

They slept in separate rooms. Damen had not brought any of his slaves along to the summer palace since they were all off in Aegina, but there was a member of his personal guard who had accompanied them who he enjoyed wrestling and sometimes invited to a more intimate bout of athleticism. When Damen went to bed, though, he did so alone. 

His thoughts drifted to his husband, who he knew had been assigned the queen’s quarters next to his, and then Damen pushed Laurent firmly from his thoughts. He had promised Laurent not to broach any intimacy between them unless Laurent said he wished it, and he intended to honor that even in his own mind. 

Damen offered to show Laurent more of the palace the following day, and then in the afternoon they walked along the coastline. Damen was tempted to strip and dunk himself in the ocean, but remembering the day before, he kept his skirt on and simply allowed the water to wet the bottom edges of it as he walked. Laurent took off his boots and his feet were paler than the sand on the beach, so when his feet sunk into the water the knuckles on his toes stuck out like pearls. 

The following day they went riding. Damen had approached the ride with the same relaxed and easy attitude he had in general about time spent at the summer palace, but Laurent pulled up alongside him and said, “Race you to that rock,” and then was off toward the rock before Damen even had a chance to reply, and of course Damen followed. 

It was exhilarating to ride in this fashion, just the two of them. Damen was accustomed to riding sedately, or to riding in some kind of sport--racing in the okton, charging in a hunt. To flatten himself against the horse's back and speed toward a rock simply because Laurent had said so and was several horse lengths ahead of him was new. 

Laurent won, and as they walked the horses afterward, Damen congratulated him. Laurent laughed. His eyes crinkled and the sound of his enjoyment was beautiful. Damen wanted to make him laugh again. 

Their final evening, the meal was fish, fresh caught earlier that day from the sea, and it was so good that they kept trying to take bites while it was still too hot from the fire and burning their tongues and laughing.

“Don’t choke on one of the bones,” said Damen, picking one out of the bite that he had taken and almost accidentally swallowed. 

“It’s too good; I don’t care,” said Laurent. 

The next morning, servants prepared their horses, and they rode back to Ios on the same cliffside road they had used to approach the summer palace. There was a lookout spot, inside the palace, where one could watch the road and see who was coming and going, but as they left, there would be no one left in the palace to observe their departure. Their small party, flying both the Akielon and the Veretian flags, left without fanfare in the early hours of the morning to avoid riding in the part of the day that was the hottest.

After an hour or so, Damen said, “I am glad we had this opportunity to get to know each other.”

Laurent looked over at him. “You don’t have to pretend,” he said.

Damen straightened. “I’m not pretending.”

Laurent was still looking over at him. “You don’t know.”

“Don’t know what?”

“This wasn’t about the two of us honeymooning,” said Laurent. 

They came around a bend in the road, and the ocean came in view. The water was a deeper blue than the sky, breaking against the cliffs.

Laurent continued. “This trip is because your family wanted to get the foreigner in their midst out of the capital.”

A hawk dove from the cliff toward the water, and swooped up from a wave with a fish in its talons. 

“I thought you knew,” said Laurent. “I thought you were part of it.”

The hawk landed on the cliff. 

“It’s not some scheme,” said Damen. “Hypermenestra was just making a kind suggestion because she could tell we are still learning each other.”

“It is a scheme,” said Laurent. “Not yours, apparently.”

“Hypermenestra isn’t like that,” said Damen. 

“Who would have suggested the idea to her, then?”

Damen opened his mouth to deny that anyone else would make such a suggestion to his father’s mistress. Hypermenestra was very aware of her status, and carefully eschewed gifts and favors from the court that might have been given with the notion that she would convey a kind word to the King.

“It would have to be Kastor,” Damen said.

Laurent nodded. He was wearing closely laced brown riding leathers, and it had the effect of making him look even more severe than usual. “She would not have thought anything of it,” he said. “One brother making a considerate suggestion for the other.”

Damen nodded slowly. It made sense, except that it was not typical for Kastor to show that kind of consideration to Damen. 

“Why would your bastard half-brother want me away from Ios?” 

“Does he want you away?” said Damen. “Or me?”

Laurent turned Damen’s direction again, and a smile broke over his face, a teacher rejoicing that a student has mastered the work. “Both?”

Damen had no answer to that, and they rode in silence. 

Damen paid particular attention to his brother that evening at the family meal. Kastor did not seem to notice. There were several new visitors to the palace who were eating with them who kept Damen’s attention from being obvious. Lady Jokaste from Aegina had arrived while Damen and Laurent had been away, and seemed to have captivated his brother’s attention. Jokaste was the oldest daughter of a minor lord in Aegina. She had uncharacteristically fair coloring for an Akielon, and her hair fell in honey-colored curls against her shoulders. Damen wondered if her mother had been from Kempt or Vere. Kastor sat next to her at the meal and laughed too loud at all of her jokes. 

Makedon, one of the best generals in the Akielon army, was on leave with reports from Delpha, and he and Theomedes and Hypermenestra talked throughout the meal. Makedon was older than Damen but younger than Theomedes. Damen guessed he was perhaps five years older than Kastor. Makedon had a scar through one of his eyebrows and a gruff laugh that sounded like a barking dog. He had started a tradition, as a young man, of notching his belt for every kill that he made in battle. His men did the same. Now, in his middle age, there were so many notches that there was very little belt left. 

Makedon assumed control of the morning drills the following day, and the exercises were especially gruelling. Damen made a habit of working out with the soldiers every morning, because it kept his fighting form trim and it earned him the respect of the other men. Makedon’s drills challenged them all. He directed them first in setting up an obstacle course in the field -- a series of rings, and then a plank in a line, and then a series of planks spaced apart horizontally. There was a tower to climb over and then two trestles and boards on top to crawl under. Once the field was established to Makedon’s satisfaction, they ran through it, in groups of five. 

Laurent came out to the fields while they were practicing, and Damen watched with interest as they were in the middle of a series of exercises. Was Laurent going to join the exercise? Would Makedon tolerate it if he did not? Dramatics seemed likely in either case.

Laurent stood a few feet away from Makedon, who was observing the men’s performance on the series of exercises he had assigned with a keen eye. Laurent watched the drills with a similar expression. 

Damen had been in one of the first groups to complete the course, so he stood at the start of the course, watching Laurent and Makedon watch another group complete it. Makedon seemed on the verge of suggesting something to Laurent as the final group began. 

“Princeling,” said Makedon, in Akielon.

“Barbarian,” said Laurent, in the same language.

“Are you going to run the course?” said Makedon.

Laurent made a dismissive noise. The two of them watched the final participants for a moment. One of the men fell off of the tower and another held out a hand to help him up again. 

Laurent turned toward Makedon. Damen made a face, thinking of walking over to the two of them and intervening before Makedon’s temper and Laurent’s temper collided in a way that was hazardous to the peace of the kingdom. 

“You should make them run it again, backwards,” said Laurent.

Makedon raised an eyebrow, then turned toward the course. He eyed it. “Good idea,” he said, to Laurent, and then, to the men, “Again!”

The rest of the week continued in this vein. Laurent never deigned to exercise with the Akielons, but somehow earned their general’s respect by offering suggestions of how he could torture them. 

In the afternoons, Damen frequently joined his father in the hearing room. “You are married now,” his father explained, as though having wed Laurent had in some way prepared Damen for increased responsibilities, and perhaps it had. Laurent joined also. 

It was traditional, in Akielos, for the King, the King’s advisors, and the Kyroi to sit at a table the shape of half of a circle. The King sat in the center, and certain chairs were traditionally those of certain Kyroi, so at any given time some of the chairs were usually empty. There was a place at the table for each of the King’s sons, though Kastor did not usually fill his. Up until his marriage, Damen’s seat had often been empty as well, but now his father seemed to expect him, and sometimes looked Damen’s direction for the judgement.

When the hearings opened, petitioners could approach the table to explain their pleas. They would stand in front of the King, or perhaps in front of the Kyros of their district, if that man or woman were present and they hoped for a favorable local judgement. 

The first day that Damen’s father invited him to the hearings, Laurent did not make an appearance—indeed, he hadn’t been invited. 

The second day, Laurent was still not invited—at least as far as Damen knew—but he did arrive. He walked in as the Kyroi were assembling, and his manner was confident, as though there were no reason he would not be welcome in this gathering of Akielon politics. 

Laurent stood in front of the semi-circle table and moved his eyes along the seats, reading the carvings in the table that labeled each chair. Sicyon. Aegina. Isthima. 

There were no chairs for consorts. If a consort intended to participate in ruling, they would be made a Kyros of their own province, usually Ios. That gave them their own responsibilities and a literal and figurative seat at the ruling table. Laurent had not been awarded any such position, but then, they had never talked about Laurent having an interest in politics. 

Theomedes was frowning at Laurent. Laurent stared back at him coolly. Theomedes turned his gaze to Damen. Damen wondered if he should have a servant bring another chair, or offer to seat Laurent in the rows at the back of the room where observers could watch the petitions. Theomedes turned back to Laurent. “You can sit there,” he said, pointing at a chair on the edge of the circle. Laurent walked over to inspect the carving on the table at that place. “Delpha.” 

Damen was uncertain what his father meant by this. Was he awarding Nikandros’s position to Laurent? Simply permitting Laurent a chair when he knew Nikandros was off at the border and not currently present? Insulting Laurent by reminding him of their current possession of Delpha?

In any case, Laurent seemed to find this acceptable, and he seated himself in the chair. His posture was relaxed and aloof, leaning back away from the table. Waiting. 

Theomedes turned back to the guards. “Bring in the petitioners.”

On that second day, the first that Laurent sat in on the petitions, Laurent did not say anything. Damen rendered two judgements, when his father turned his direction, and he could feel Laurent’s eyes on him as he did so. 

The third day, Theomedes did all of the speaking himself, which was how Damen remembered his father handling petitioners in his youth.

The fourth day, Theomedes listened to a particularly thorny case regarding a motherless child, a goat left as a bequest to the child, and two men who claimed to be the child’s father who both seemed more interested in the goat. The men had brought both the child and the goat along with them to the petition, and the child and the goat seemed to be in competition to see who could generate the most cacophony, so the petition hall had something of the feeling of a chaotic market stall.

Theomedes turned to Damen after the arguments were made. Damen frowned, uncertain and thinking. It was not clear who to seek justice for in this case. The men, who were the petitioners, or the child, who was helpless to speak for herself. Before Damen opened his mouth, Theomedes turned his head the other direction and pinned his gaze on Laurent.

“What do you think?” said Theomedes. The child and the goat quieted somewhat, and the echo of Theomedes’s voice in the room emphasized the blissful silence.

“I think,” said Laurent, “that we should hear from the child’s aunt.”

Theomedes frowned. “The petitioners are the child’s fathers.” He spoke slowly, as though perhaps Laurent were very dense or having trouble understanding the language.

“The petitioners each claim to be the child’s father,” said Laurent. “They can’t both have fathered her.” Laurent turned to the rows of benches set up for observers of the petitions and looked at a young woman. “Are you not the child’s aunt?”

“Come up to the petitioning floor,” Theomedes told the woman. 

She fell to the ground. “Exalted,” she said, and then she rose again and stood next to the other petitioners.

The goat bleated. 

“Are you related to this child?” said Theomedes.

The woman nodded. “Yes, Nika is my sister’s daughter.”

Theomedes grunted. “Well, which one of these men is her father?”

“May I ask a question?” said Laurent.

Theomedes turned Laurent’s direction. Damen could tell his father was surprised by Laurent’s impertinence, but after a moment, he nodded.

“Who has been caring for Nika?” said Laurent. “While her mother was sick and before this case was brought?”

“I was, Exalted,” said the woman. 

“And how long has that been?”

“Seven months, Exalted.”

“How old is Nika?”

“Eighteen months, Exalted.”

“Were these men helping with Nika’s care during that time?” said Laurent. Damen’s father did not usually engage in such extended questioning of petitioners. Damen was sitting up attentively in his seat.

“No, Exalted.”

Laurent turned from facing the woman to looking at Theomedes. “It seems that for almost half the child’s life, her aunt has cared for her, not her fathers. Because the goat was to provide for the child, it would be my recommendation that both the goat and the child stay with Nika’s aunt.”

Theomedes stroked his beard slowly. Nika began to cry again in the arms of one of the claimed fathers, and was reaching for her aunt standing next to them. The goat bleated again.

“So be it,” said Theomedes. 

The aunt fell to her knees again, thankful. Nika went gratefully into her aunt’s arms and quieted. The guards took the rope of the goat from the other claimed father and handed it to the aunt, and then escorted all three of them out of the hearing room.

Damen kept his eyes on Laurent, who sat back slightly in his chair with a very small smile. 

Damen wanted to speak with Laurent about the case. After dinner he said, “Would you like to go for a walk in the orchard?”

Laurent wrinkled his nose. “There are too many bugs.”

Last week, Laurent had been bitten by a stinging fly in the orchard, had squealed and then promptly claimed that having such insects was “barbaric.” 

“A walk along the coast?” said Damen. “The wind will keep off any bugs.”

Laurent seemed skeptical, but agreed. After the meal, one of Damen’s guard and one of Laurent’s guard followed them down to the water. 

There were a lot of steps. They had to first walk from the area of the keep down to the level of the market and the center of the town, which was down the wide marble palace steps that led up to the the walls. Then there were the limestone city steps that went from the market down to the beach, progressions of steps of sometimes uneven height with four landings spaced in between as the walk progressed.

On the third landing, Laurent said, “Are we going to have to walk up these same steps?”

“Don’t give Makedon any ideas,” said Damen, though of course Makedon already knew about the steps, and it was routine for Akielon generals to tell the soldiers to do a run along the water.

Once they had reached the level of the water, there was a long expanse of sand between the edges of the lower city and the water. During storms, the water often consumed the entire lower city, so it was only temporary wooden buildings. Small stands that had been set up to sell food, racks being used to dry fish. 

The beach was relatively quiet, so Damen signalled the guards to give them some space, and he and Laurent walked out along the sand. He stopped after a few steps to remove his sandals, because the sand was pouring into them and they were more hindrance than protection. 

Laurent, who was wearing boots, was eyeing the sand more skeptically.

“Try taking off your shoes.”

“Why is Akielos full of small indignities?” said Laurent, but he said it in Veretian and in a low voice, as though he were speaking to himself, so Damen just looked out at the water and did not answer. 

Waves hit the sand hungrily, and then the water retreated back into itself, and then attacked again, each time trying to gain further ground in an endless battle. 

Damen turned back. Laurent had removed his boots and was holding them in his hand and staring at the sand with distaste.

“Come,” said Damen. “It’s easier to walk closer to the water where the sand is firm.”

They crossed the dry sand and then walked along the damp sand parallel to the city. Damen thought of the reason for his invitation. “It was good, today,” he said, “how you noticed that the child’s aunt was in the hearing room even though she was not a petitioner.”

Laurent glanced at Damen, and then out over the water. He said nothing.

“Do you have experience with dispensing justice?” said Damen. “I have watched my father, of course, but I have not participated routinely.” He skirted an area with a lot of shells to stay on the softer sand. “My father said I was ready, now that I was married. But perhaps you have been doing this for some time, in Vere.”

Laurent shook his head. “It is not like that, in Vere.”

“No?”

“People cannot bring small claims to the King in the same fashion,” said Laurent. They walked along the water. The waves lapped at Damen’s ankles. “Small claims are handled by magistrates assigned to each district, and disputes with the magistrate might be brought to the lord of the region in question, but not to the King.”

“What does the King occupy himself with, in Vere?” said Damen.

“Disputes between Lords. Rates of taxation and revenue. Trade with other countries. War.”

“Vere is not at war,” said Damen.

“Not at present.”

They walked a dozen steps or so in silence. “Still,” said Damen. “I was impressed by your insight.”

There was a protrusion in the cliff, and they walked around it, and portions of the city and the castle disappeared from view behind the rock. Damen stopped walking and looked up at the sky. 

“Do you look at the stars, in Vere?” he said.

Laurent stopped next to him, and turned his face upward. “You have so many questions about Vere.”

“I would like to learn about it,” said Damen. Damen looked over at Laurent. 

“Why?”

“Because you are from Vere. I would like to understand more about you.”

Laurent was still staring up at the sky. After a moment he lowered his gaze to meet Damen’s. “Yes,” he said. 

Damen was puzzled by the non-sequitur.

“Yes, we like to look at the stars.”

Damen nodded. “My friend Nikandros and I liked to pick out the figures from the stories in the sky,” he said. “We would try to spot the hunter, or Queen Eradne, or one of the animals.”

Laurent looked up again. “Yes, my mother told my such stories,” he said. “She grew up in Kempt, and there were so many trees so that to have a view such as this was rare. But in Vere we could go up on the parapets of the palace and have a fine view on a clear night.”

“Tell me?” said Damen, and he and Laurent ended up sitting on the sand, staring up at the sky, pointing at various stars and talking about the stories they’d heard about them as children.

One of the constellations of stars that Damen grew up seeing as a bear, Laurent insisted was the skirt of a princess, and they laughed, comparing descriptions. 

Damen looked over at Laurent. The moon and starlight made him more silver than golden, but his hair still glistened and his eyes were bright when he looked over at Damen. Damen wanted to reach for him. He wanted to rest an arm over the back of Laurent’s shoulders and have Laurent lie back against him as they looked at the stars, rather than each of them resting their hands in the sand. He wanted to lean in close to Laurent and press their lips together in the moonlight.

“We should get back,” said Laurent, and they met up again with their guards further up the beach and returned to the keep.

The next week, a famous wrestler visited the capital, and Damen made a habit of practicing with him in the mornings, before he visited the baths. Timon was very good, similar to Damen in size and well trained in the classical techniques. Damen had wrestled him once before, as a young man, when he had presented no challenge to Timon whatsoever, and so it was gratifying that now he was able to pin Timon in perhaps one of every five of their matches. 

Damen noticed, on the second day he wrestled with Timon, that Laurent had come to observe, leaning against the fence of the wrestling rings. One of his boots rested on the lower bar of the wooden fence and his arms were folded on the top rung.

Damen went over to him after the match; Timon had won. “Are you a wrestler?”

“Is that what you call it?” murmured Laurent.

Damen began to explain to Laurent the long and important history of wrestling in Akielos.

Laurent interrupted him. “I am not a wrestler.”

“Would you like to learn?” said Damen. “I could teach you.”

“I think not,” said Laurent. Though he continued to return to the side of the ring to watch Damen practice with Timon for the rest of Timon’s visit, so he clearly shared Damen’s appreciation for good wrestling technique.

Damen’s newly married life was forming something of a routine; his routine was much like his life before he had been married. He still began his day by exercising with the soldiers--drills with Makedon or wrestling or, sometimes, leading a squadron in a set of his own devising. In the afternoons he worked now with his father and Laurent in the hearing room. He had learned to listen closely when Laurent offered a suggestion. Theomedes was not always amenable to advice from a Veretian, but Damen was seeing that Laurent’s advice was always good.

At the evening meal, Damen was seated next to Laurent, and always attempted to engage Laurent in polite conversation. He asked about Laurent’s day. About Vere. About things that had happened in Laurent’s childhood. He invited Laurent to question him similarly, and did his best to answer Laurent’s questions about his first horse (Damen hardly recalled the pony he had rode as a tiny boy) or about Akielos’s relationship with the Empire.

Across from Damen, Kastor seemed to be having greater luck in wooing Lady Jokaste. While Laurent refused to laugh politely if he considered Damen’s jokes not witty, Kastor and Jokaste seemed to be ever overflowing with good humor. When Damen looked over at them, the way they looked at each other was heavy with sexual promise. Damen was certain--as was half the court--that when they left the table after the meal, they were retiring to Kastor’s chambers together.

After the evening meal, Damen and Laurent retired separately. Damen honored his promise to not press his affections on Laurent again, and he had not yet called back his slaves or replaced them, so unusually for the first time in his adult life, Damen was spending his evenings alone. 

He borrowed some books, from the library, and spent some of his new time alone reading. He picked some titles that Laurent had mentioned in conversation, trying to familiarize himself with Laurent’s references, or to understand Laurent’s comments after the fact. He kept up with his correspondence, writing to Torveld of Patras, who he had met the year prior, and, newly, to Auguste of Vere, telling of his pleasure at their new alliance. And sometimes, after those things were completed, or when he was feeling tired, Damen stretched out on his bedsheets alone. 

He stared up at the carved wooden panels of the ceiling, or at the fluting at the top of one of the delicate marble columns that held up the ceiling. Some evenings, his body demanded attention, and as he stroked himself, he tried not to think of Laurent.

He was not always successful. He permitted himself, usually, to think of Laurent in ways that he had actually seen. Remembering one of Laurent’s genuine smiles at a joke that Damen had told at dinner was acceptable, or recalling fondly the way that moonlight had caressed Laurent’s hair when they had walked down by the water. He tried not to let himself imagine having any more of Laurent than he already did, but he was not good at controlling his thoughts. Sometimes he pictured Laurent joining him in the bedroom--how pleasing it might be to watch Laurent shed the layers of his clothing that covered his skin. Or to watch Laurent untie the thread at the end of his braid and to see his hair fall loose on his shoulders.

Damen would picture, in flashes, Laurent in his bed. Laurent’s hair against his sheets. Laurent’s body pressed against his. Laurent’s expression beneath him, uncertain and--

Damen pushed his thoughts away again. Laurent was not interested in an intimate marriage, he told himself. It felt wrong for Damen to spend time imagining something that he knew Laurent had no interest in. 

He recalled, instead, the gentle touches of his favorite slave Lykaios, and the fall of her hair on his thigh as she tended to him, and the curve of her cheek--and then he was distracted, suddenly, by the notion that while he had lived with Lykaios for several years, he wasn’t entirely certain what color her eyes were. They were brown, he thought. But they might have been grey. His memory was interrupted by images of Laurent’s eyes, which he could picture in any number of expressions. 

He rolled onto his side and stared at the marble column that was in that direction, instead, and waited for his arousal to subside. 

Damen had not forgotten, in the midst of his new routine and Kastor’s flirtation with Jokaste, the conversation he had had with Laurent on their return from the summer palace. 

Nikandros had cautioned him about Kastor, though Damen had not credited it at the time. Nikandros and Damen had grown up together at the palace, and then Nikandros had left for the honor of serving at the Kingsmeet.

When Nikandros had returned, two years later, he had cautioned Damen about his brother. “Kastor looks at you with envy.”

Damen had dismissed his friend’s concern. Damen and Kastor had never been especially close--they were not the fast friends that Damen knew some brothers to be--but Damen had always looked up to his older brother. Kastor was ten years older than Damen himself, and so as a boy, Damen had always been anxious to be allowed to play the games that Kastor was playing, or to be allowed the privileges that only his brother had been old enough to earn.

It was different now, as adults. Damen was earning privileges now that Kastor did not. It had been Damen who had lead at the front of the battlefield at Marlas, and Damen who had fought with Auguste in single combat. Damen had accepted the terms of the political marriage that secured Delpha for them, and Damen was the one now listening to petitions with their father in the hearing room. 

Kastor spent time with his friends, and the previous year he had gone to Isthima, but he did not have responsibilities or duties in the same fashion that Damen did as the Crown Prince. Damen had thought, perhaps, that their father would make Kastor the Kyros of Delpha, when the new territory had been won. But Theomedes had awarded that honor instead to Nikandros, and Damen couldn’t begrudge his childhood best friend the privilege. 

Damen asked his father about it, one afternoon when the two of them were alone as the hearing chamber cleared. 

“Father,” he said. “Could I ask you a question about ruling?”

“You’ve been talking too much to that Veretian princeling,” said Theomedes.

The question wasn’t Laurent’s idea, but Damen did not feel like arguing, and let the comment pass. 

“I was wondering about your decision to place Nikandros in charge of Delpha,” he said. “I have a great fondness for Nikandros, as you know. But how do you select which men will be adequate to the task of that type of leadership, when they are untested?”

Theomedes grunted. “You must pick men that are loyal.”

“How was it that you could tell that Nikandros was loyal to you?”

“Loyal to me?” said Theomedes. “He’s not loyal to me. He’s your man through and through.”

“But you picked him for his loyalty to me?”

Theomedes seemed to find the subject difficult to discuss, as though his logic were so obvious that it somehow was challenging for him to place things that he knew so well into words. 

“You were the one who won Delpha for us,” Theomedes said. “So it followed that it would be one of your men who would hold it once we took it. Nikandros is the most capable of your people, and he doesn’t have any land of his own.” Nikandros’s father was a swordmaster of some repute, but not a nobleman, which is why he had grown up with Damen in Ios. “It could have been someone like Alexon--” that was the son of one of the kyroi “--but he already stands to inherit, and would not gain loyalty through his service in Delpha. Or it could have been someone like Makedon, though he is better on the battlefield than he would be holding the peace.”

Damen nodded. “Thank you, Father,” he said. “It is useful to me to understand how your reasoning progresses about such matters, so that I will be able to make wise decisions of my own someday.”

“I suppose it’s good that Veretian has twisted your head toward politics. Just be sure he doesn’t steal your throne when you aren’t looking.”

“I am pleased he is interested in ruling with me,” said Damen. “I find he is thoughtful and has sound advice.”

“I don’t think you married him for his ‘sound advice,’” said Theomedes. “If only he were a woman, you could have an heir on the way already.”

That would not be the case, Damen supposed, because he and Laurent were not actually intimate, but it was yet another topic on which it seemed foolish to bother arguing with his father. “There is plenty of time for heirs later,” said Damen. Several women had already expressed their interest in bearing a possible heir to him, but he hadn’t given the matter much thought since the marriage had only just happened.

“Perhaps your brother will marry Horace’s daughter,” said Theomedes. Horace was a minor lord in Aegina; his daughter was Jokaste. 

“They seem taken with each other,” said Damen. 

“I thought Kastor preferred men, and you were the one who preferred women,” said Theomedes, and if one had considered their respective harems over the last few years, that would certainly have given that impression. “It all depends on the person,” said Damen diplomatically, and he and his father left the hearing room to prepare for dinner. 

Damen did not realize that Laurent was undertaking his own investigation into Kastor’s activities until Laurent reported to Damen on his findings. Damen received a message from a servant, who said, “The Prince invites you to bathe with him.”

“Kastor?” said Damen. He and Kastor occasionally ran into each other at the royal baths, but they did not arrange to go there at the same time.

“Prince Laurent,” said the servant. “He is there now and awaits you.” Damen and Laurent did not run into each other in the royal baths. Damen was under the impression that Laurent went to some effort to only bathe when he knew the chambers would be empty of Damen or Kastor or Theomedes, and Damen had deliberately not commented on Laurent’s preference for privacy. This made the invitation all the more mysterious. 

Damen’s frowned, but he agreeably changed his path to go to the royal baths. The royal baths were a luxury. The water was heated under the palace by a series of fires and cisterns, and then traveled through small pipes to the royal baths and the slave baths. The royal baths were decorated with fine tiles of marble, and the slaves kept them them stocked with white cotton towels, fine oils, and cakes of soap. 

When Damen entered, Laurent was seated in one of the soaking tubs, his hair wet. His clothes were set off to the side on one of the wooden benches. Laurent’s eyes opened at Damen’s arrival. 

“You asked me to join you?” said Damen.

Laurent nodded. “Leave us,” he said to the servant who had fetched Damen, and the boy bowed obediently and left the room. The heavy wooden door to the bathing chambers shut behind him. 

“Come here,” said Laurent.

Damen took a step forward toward the tub Laurent was in without thinking, and then stopped. The shape of Laurent’s face was different, with his hair wet and slicked back from it. His face seemed more angular, stronger. Damen could see the line of his shoulders, above the water, and the muscles of his arm resting on the edge of the tub. The rest of Laurent’s body was a shimmering pale form beneath the water. Damen’s body was having a predictable but unfortunate reaction to seeing Laurent naked. “I’m not sure this is a good idea.”

Laurent raised an eyebrow.

“You truly wish for us to bathe together?” said Damen. Perhaps this was Laurent’s method of inviting intimacy, he thought. Perhaps Veretians thought of baths as intimate--

“I wish for us to speak without fear of being overheard,” said Laurent, and Damen almost sighed in disappointment.

Damen drew one of the wooden benches over next to where Laurent was soaking in the tub, and sat down on it. “And why is this location safe from eavesdroppers?” He was partly testing to see if Laurent knew the Akielon word eavesdroppers.

Laurent did know the word, and the answer had to do with the water, and the echo in the tile chamber, and the sound that surrounded it with all of the pipes and the braziers.

“Still,” said Laurent, switching to Veretian. “It is perhaps safer if we spoke my language.”

“So you are not worried about being overheard by your men,” said Damen.

“No.” Laurent was silent for a moment. Damen caught sight of one of his feet poking up at the surface of the water, his toes extending up into the air, and then Damen’s eyes followed the line of his calf down under the water until Damen very deliberately drew his eyes away and focused them on one of the tiles in the floor. “Tell me about your brother,” said Laurent.

“Kastor is older than I am,” said Damen. “He had just turned ten when I was born.”

“Auguste was twelve when I was born,” murmured Laurent.

Damen continued. “Kastor’s mother is Hypermenestra, as you know. She has been father’s mistress for decades. She was common-born, from here in Ios, so it was never a thought that they might be able to marry.”

“And he didn’t set her aside when he did marry?” said Laurent.

Damen shook his head. “My mother, Egeria, was a political marriage for father,” he said. “From how people talk, it is my understanding that they both kept other lovers.”

Laurent glanced over at Damen sharply. “Yet your own parentage is not questioned?”

Damen shook his head. “There are ways for such things,” he said. “For avoiding a child when it is not right.”

Laurent was still looking at him with that quizzical expression.

“Also,” said Damen, “Egeria preferred women.”

Laurent seemed to find that a more reasonable explanation. 

Damen returned to the original subject. “Hypermenestra has been living in the palace as father’s mistress since father was a young man. Years before he married.”

“And even though your ‘methods’ are so perfect, they had your brother?”

“No,” Damen shook his head. “Then father married Egeria. She was nineteen when they married. Father was a bit older. Perhaps twenty-five. They tried to have a child for five years.”

Laurent’s eyes were wide on Damen.

“But they were not blessed. So Father spoke with Hypermenestra about a child. He needed an heir for the kingdom. Hypermenestra was willing, and Kastor was born the following year.”

Laurent shifted in the bath, and the ripples of water at his movement licked at the tiles bordering the pool. A trail of water spilled over the edge and Damen’s toe was wet.

“Kastor was raised to be king, then,” said Laurent.

Damen nodded. “Yes, Father did not expect other children. I was a surprise.”

“A welcome one,” said Laurent.

Damen tilted his head to the side. “Many people don’t speak of it to me,” he said. “But I understand that Egeria greatly wished a child, and I expect Father was happy for her in that way. He was saddened by her loss, though, and I think it was hard for him to look at me and not think of her death.”

“Yet you became the heir,” said Laurent.

Damen nodded.

Laurent had a considering and thoughtful look for a moment, as though he were turning over the information that Damen had given him in his head the way a baker might knead a dough. Then, his eyes refocused on Damen himself.

“It will be suspicious,” said Laurent, still speaking Veretian, “if I invited you to the bath and you emerge not wet.”

Damen swallowed. “I didn’t want to impose,” he said. 

Laurent made a show of glancing around. “I think the pool is large enough to contain you.”

Damen took a breath. He did not move toward the pool. “Laurent,” he said, his tone serious. “Is this an invitation?”

Laurent pursed his lips. “No,” he said. “It is a directive, so that you do not disrupt my plan.”

“I see,” said Damen. He turned away from Laurent as he undressed, and then he slid quickly into the far side of the pool from Laurent. The pool was long enough that each of them might have floated sideways and their feet might barely have touched. 

It still felt intimate. They were both without clothing. The air in the room was moist and heavy. It was quiet, as neither of them spoke, and the sound was just of the lapping of the water against the tiles and then the echo of that sound back from the tiles to their ears. The water was pleasantly warm, and Damen tried to relax into its embrace, and tried to distract his mind with thoughts of unarousing things.

“Do you always find bathing so amorous,” said Laurent. He sounded amused, and Damen hoped that the color of his skin hid how he was flushed with embarrassment. 

“I--” Damen started, and realized that he had little to offer in the way of a defense, and he stopped speaking. “I am wet now,” he said. “Is your plan complete?”

“Yes,” said Laurent. “I will leave first, in case you wish to--deal with that.”

Damen blushed further. 

Laurent pushed himself out of the pool with his arms, climbing up onto the tile. His pale skin was revealed slowly by the water, and then he was dripping on the tile as he reached for one of the towels the slaves kept stocked.

Laurent wrapped one of the towels around his waist and used a second to dry his hair, wringing the length of it between his hands and the towel to remove as much water as he could. 

Damen watched, as Laurent gathered his things and another towel and retreated to another chamber to dress, and then Damen lingered in the pool.

Nikandros returned to the capital. Damen had not had occasion to see him since the campaign. They had exchanged the occasional letter, but it was still good to see Nikandros’s party approaching the white cliffs of Ios, and then riding into the courtyard of the keep in the center of the city.

Damen walked down the steps of the palace to greet his friend. A groom took the reins of Nikandros’s horse, and Damen took his friend’s hands, and then tugged him into an embrace.

“Old friend,” Damen said. “It is so good to see you.”

“Exalted,” said Nikandros.

“There is no need for that,” said Damen. He released Nikandros from his embrace and looked his friend over. “You look well! Have you gotten lots of sun?”

“I am well,” said Nikandros, though there was something in his eyes that spoke of a longer story that Damen wished to hear from him in private. “And you?”

“I am well also,” said Damen. 

They turned toward the steps up to the keep. Damen’s arm was still around Nikandros’s shoulders. Laurent was standing at the top of the steps. It seemed rude, to Damen, to stand up at the top and not come down to greet a guest, but he understood that it was a Veretian custom. Laurent was likely not trying to be rude.

At the top of the steps, Damen introduced Laurent and Nikandros again. “And Nikandros,” he finished. “You remember Prince Laurent of Vere.”

Nikandros inclined his head.

“What brings you back to Ios?” said Damen warmly. “I am very happy to see you, of course, but I didn’t not expect you to return so soon.”

Nikandros actually turned his eyes toward Laurent. 

The sun was on Laurent’s face, and he was squinting and looking at them evenly.

Nikandros turned back to Damen. “I thought I should provide your father with a report,” he said.

Damen nodded.

“Damen,” said Nikandros, placing a hand on his forearm. “Do you think we could go walking together? Just the two of us.”

“Of course,” Damen agreed. “Perhaps this evening.”

But it was not to be. Theomedes claimed Nikandros’s time that evening, drawing Nikandros away to sit separate from the rest of the assembled guests, with only Theomedes’s slaves to serve them.

The next day was one on which hearings were held. Damen arrived and took his customary seat. He looked up across the table, expecting to meet Laurent’s eyes in the seat traditionally reserved for the Kyros of Delpha, and instead saw Nikandros settling himself into the chair. Nikandros was formally dressed in a fine linen garment, though he also wore his sword at his side.

Damen thought belatedly of Laurent. Laurent was not in the hearing chamber yet. Perhaps Damen should speak to a servant about bringing another chair. Or simply tell Laurent to take Heiron’s seat--although now that Damen looked over, Heiron was seating himself also. Damen had not even realized Heiron had planned to visit the capitol.

Damen looked at the assembled kyroi more closely. There were several more than had been present during the hearings the week before. Nikandros was visiting, of course. Heiron had apparently come from Aegina. Kristiana, the Kyros of Isthima, was settling herself into her chair. Anthea, the Kyros of Kesus entered the room as well. As the door closed, the only seats remaining empty at the table were Kastor’s and Meniados’s of Sicyon.

Laurent was one of the last ones into the room. He took in the assembled group of kyroi, looking slowly around the table.

“We’ll send for another chair,” said Damen to Laurent, glancing at his father.

“No need,” said Laurent. “Today I’m here as a petitioner.”

Damen looked over at his father in surprise, but Theomedes nodded as though he expected this. “Continue.”

Laurent was dressed in his usual Veretian style. His clothing was a pale grey color and the style involved a lot of laces tightly done close to his body. His hair was neatly braided behind him, leaving his face severe and angular. He spoke in a clear voice so he could be easily heard throughout the chamber. His Akielon was spoken with a lilting accent but understandable. “I am bringing a petition to King Theomedes regarding my evidence of the treacherous behavior of his son, Prince Kastor.”

A murmur of voices echoed through the hearing room. Damen’s eyes widened in shock. 

Theomedes was frowning. “That’s a serious allegation.”

Laurent nodded.

“Especially for a Veretian to make.”

“Perhaps,” said Laurent tactfully, “as a foreigner, it is easy to see more clearly.”

“Send for Kastor,” said Theomedes to the guards. “So he can hear the charges this whelp might make against him.”

Kastor was sent for. Damen looked at Laurent, who was not looking back at him and was keeping his eyes on Theomedes. Damen looked around at the other kyroi. They did not seem surprised. Heiron met his eyes evenly and nodded a little. Nikandros had one hand on his sword at his belt but was still seated in his chair. Kristiana and Anthea had leaned in close to each other to have a whispered conversation. 

Damen wished to converse with someone, but his father on one side of him would not lower himself and Meniados’s seat on his other side was empty.

They were kept waiting on Kastor for some minutes. He arrived finally, and instead of standing in front of the hearing table as petitioners or accused usually did, he seated himself at the table, in the post that he typically left empty.

Theomedes turned his direction. “You understand there is an accusation against you.”

Kastor nodded. “I trust I can challenge him to a duel for the offense once this is settled.”

Theomedes nodded, and that was another thing for Damen to worry about, because Laurent and Kastor would not be fairly matched. Kastor had been training in swordwork his entire life. He trained daily. He had been noted as an exceptional swordsman for many years, when Damen had only just been a boy, and at thirty-five Kastor was still in his prime.

Laurent was much younger, and his build did not compare to Kastor’s. He had not the breadth nor the muscle to take on an accomplished Akielon swordsman. He also lacked the training. Damen had never seen Laurent lift a sword. He didn’t train daily in exercise the way the Akielons did. Laurent might think he was ready to take on Kastor in the petitioning chamber, where the battles were fought with words, but Laurent would not be prepared to take on Kastor on the field. 

“Can we discuss--” Damen began.

Theomedes stopped him with a raised hand. “The petition has begun.” Theomedes gestured to Laurent. “Present your evidence.” 

Laurent did. 

He spoke coolly, seemingly calm despite Kastor’s threat of a duel, and he set forth one reasoned argument and piece of evidence after another. 

The evidence that Kastor was trying to disrupt Damen’s inheritance and take over the kingdom himself was damning, and there was a lot of it. Laurent had a letter sent from Kastor to Laurent’s exiled uncle, which Kastor claimed was forged despite everyone recognizing his seal. Kastor’s scribe was missing from the city, Laurent said, though he showed four other letters that Kastor acknowledged having dictated which were written clearly by the same hand. 

Then, there was an indiscreet letter between Hypermenestra and Torgeir of Patras, and Hypermenestra was fetched and reluctantly admitted that it was her seal, and her scribe insisted she had dictated it personally, and Hypermenestra was crying a little and refused to say anything more. 

Laurent moved on. He produced a slave boy.

“Slaves can’t give testimony,” said Kastor. 

“This is true,” said Theomedes.

“He is free,” said Laurent.

“He was my slave,” said Kastor. “Don’t lie.”

“I purchased him from you,” said Laurent. “And I have freed him.” 

Paperwork regarding the sale of the slave was produced, showing Kastor’s seal and, oddly enough, Laurent’s on the same parchment, and then a document of manumission was laid on the table, and Damen recognized Laurent’s own flowing handwriting pronouncing that this slave, known as Kallias, who had previously been owned by Prince Kastor of Akielos and had been trained in the gardens of Nereus, was now a free man, to be employed as a servant by Prince Laurent of Vere and paid for his work at a rate of three copper sols a week, plus accommodations and food. Laurent’s seal was on the manumission again, and Kallias had drawn an x on the paper in the place for his signature.

Kastor looked furious. Theomedes inspected the paperwork and seemed dubious.

“There is precedent, Exalted,” Heiron ventured, and reminded the King of a previous case where testimony from a freed slave had been heard and accepted, based on Theomedes’s wise decision at the time, and Theomedes agreed they could hear the testimony. 

Damen vaguely recognized the slave as one he had seen serving Kastor in the past. Kallias had dark curls and fine features, as Damen would have expected from Nereus’s garden, and he had a slave’s mannerisms. He bowed deeply upon being presented to the King, and he spoke from a deep bow as though it overcame him to try to present to royalty, but he did, at Laurent’s gentle prompting, tell a long tale of what he had overheard in Kastor’s chambers. 

Kastor rolled his eyes dramatically. “None of this can be trusted,” he said. “Let us settle this on the field, Princeling.”

“I have further evidence,” said Laurent, patiently. 

“Continue,” said Theomedes.

“I would like to present evidence from Kyros Nikandros of Delfeur.”

“Delpha,” Theomedes corrected. 

Laurent stepped to the side, because Nikandros was rising from his chair at the petitioning table to stand in front of it to present his testimony. 

Nikandros’s evidence was less specific than Kallias’s, but almost more damning because it came from a Kyros with an impeccable reputation rather than a former slave. Nikandros had also overheard conversations between Kastor and the former ambassador from Vere indicating that Kastor expected something unfortunate to befall Damen, and while Kastor had been more discrete in the gardens where he was overheard than he was in his own chambers in front of his slaves, they led to the same conclusion.

“We will can settle this on the field, Nikandros,” said Kastor, baring his teeth, and Nikandros nodded, accepting. 

Laurent finished his presentation with things he had overheard or observed himself, as a Prince residing in Ios, put together with things that Theomedes himself had said, or that he had overheard and quoted from Damen, and then Laurent ended his speech with a statement of his confidence that Theomedes was a wise ruler who would make a rational decision despite the subject of the case being one of his sons.

“Father,” said Kastor. “This is ridiculous.”

“Quiet,” said Theomedes. “I’m thinking.”

Theomedes was quiet for a time, stroking his beard thoughtfully. Damen thought of all of the evidence, and watched Kastor across the room. Nikandros still had his hand on his sword hilt. Damen wondered how to challenge Kastor first, so that neither Laurent nor Nikandros would have to fight him, and wondered if his father would permit it, his two sons on the field standing across from each other.

“The evidence is damning,” Theomedes said finally. “If this were anyone else, I would be ready to make my judgment. Have you any counter evidence to present?”

Kastor sputtered. “This Veretian is just trying to sow dissension amongst us so that his brother can retake Delpha,” said Kastor. “He’s turned Damen’s head in bed and he’s tricking you as well.”

“If that were so,” said Theomedes, “would it not be better to turn us against the Kyros of Delpha? We would recall him, and leave uncertainty in the region, and vulnerability to an attack. And yet instead, he has presented evidence against you, including testimony from Nikandros himself.”

“Veretians are lying snakes who are always placing traps,” said Kastor. “You’ve said that yourself, Father.”

“I have,” said Theomedes. “And you have fallen in to this one.”

Kastor was placed under house arrest for treason. Hypermenestra was still crying in the audience chamber, and Theomedes, who Damen had only ever seen be considerate to Hypermenestra’s feelings, left her alone there as he left, occupied with his own grief, Damen supposed.

Damen wanted to speak with Laurent, after the hearing, to berate Laurent for not telling him of this plan, and to express his relief that Laurent had not had to duel Kastor, but instead, he found himself caught up by Nikandros. Nikandros had tried to speak with Damen prior, and Damen now understood what about, and Nikandros had at least understood the stakes of what he was doing in possibly dueling Kastor.

So Damen conversed with Nikandros, instead, about the letters he’d exchanged with Laurent, and then by the time Damen sought Laurent out with his eyes again, Laurent was nowhere to be seen.

Damen did not find Laurent until evening, when he spied a lone figure up on the battlements looking out at the ocean, and then he walked up the narrow stairs and along the wall himself.

“Laurent,” he said. Laurent looked over. It was windy, up on the wall, and the wind blew Laurent’s hair across his face. It teased at Damen’s short curls as well, but they were less possible to disarray. “Thank you,” Damen said.

“Thank you?” said Laurent incredulously. “I have cost you your brother. If you did the same to me I would--”

He didn’t finish his threat.

“Kastor has turned against me,” said Damen, “which was not your doing, but his, and it was you who have opened my eyes to it so that I was not vulnerable to something worse.”

“I thought you would think me a coward,” said Laurent. “For calling him out in the petitioning chamber and not on the field.”

“You were exactly right, in what you did,” said Damen. “I feared for you, when Kastor mentioned a duel, though.”

“Because of the retribution my brother would seek?”

“Because I am fond of you,” said Damen, a hint of exasperation in his tone. “And I did not wish to see you skewered on a traitor’s sword.”

“You think Kastor is better than I am?” said Laurent.

Damen looked Laurent up and down. “At sword fighting? Yes.”

“You have not seen me fight,” said Laurent.

“I think I saw it today,” said Damen. “And it was most impressive, and I am trying to thank you.”

Laurent took a deep breath, and then let it out. The wind teased at their hair again, and at the edge of Damen’s chiton, and he held it down with one of his hands. Laurent smiled. “You’re welcome,” he said finally.

Damen turned, planning to go back down the stairs and away from the wind.

“Damen,” said Laurent. 

Damen turned back around. Laurent took a step closer to him. “Damen,” Laurent said a second time. Damen waited for whatever Laurent was thinking to say next, but then Laurent took another step closer and leaned in and kissed him.

It was a chaste kiss. Laurent was leaning in so only their mouths were touching, and it was a light brush of lips. Damen’s eyes widened in surprise, and then he closed them to focus on the feeling of Laurent’s lips on his.

Laurent pulled away, and Damen opened his eyes again, and smiled at Laurent on the battlements. He stretched out one of his hands, as an offering, and Laurent took it. 

Damen took in his husband, his hair still haphazardly blown by the wind and his lips pink from their kiss, and behind him the panoply of stars over the cliffs. He could see Eradne’s bear, and the shimmering edge what Laurent would probably say was some kind of princess or a peacock or something ridiculous, and then a star fell through the sky with a trail of white light twinkling behind it. “Look,” said Damen, pointing so Laurent could see it as well.

“A sign,” said Laurent, his eyes widening. “A blessing for us.”

Damen nodded, and then Laurent took a step closer to him, and Damen waited for Laurent to lean in and kiss him again.

**Author's Note:**

> [author's other Captive Prince fics](https://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&commit=Sort+and+Filter&work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=kudos_count&include_work_search%5Bfandom_ids%5D%5B%5D=3516977&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bexcluded_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bcrossover%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_from%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_to%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_from%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_to%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&user_id=Josselin), [come chat with the author on tumblr](http://josselinkohl.tumblr.com/), [Captive Prince bang tumblr](http://capri-bigbang2k18.tumblr.com/)


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